Announcements

NASA Office of Education opened a call for graduate research proposals on January 17, 2018. The NASA Research Announcement (NRA) NNH18ZHA003N:NASA Fellowship Activity 2018 is seeking student authored and independently conceived graduate research proposals responding to a NASA Research Opportunity listed in the solicitation. The purpose of the NASA Fellowship Activity 2018 is to support the vitality and diversity of the STEM workforce of NASA and the United States by training and funding graduate students during their STEM academic endeavors and providing access to NASA, its content, unique facilities, and STEM experts. The program details and requirements are outlined in the solicitation document.

To be eligible to submit a proposal, candidates must be U.S. citizens or naturalized citizens who hold a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field earned before Aug. 31, 2018. Candidates must be enrolled in a master’s or doctoral degree program no later than Sept. 1, 2018, and intend to pursue a research-based Masters or Ph.D. program in a NASA-relevant field.

CASIS and Marvel Entertainment Unveil Guardians of the Galaxy Space Station Challenge

Challenge Allows Students Ages 13-18 to Submit Flight Concepts for Microgravity ResearchTwo Student Projects Will be Selected and Launch to the International Space Station

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (January 10, 2018)– The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and Marvel Entertainment today announced the Guardians of the Galaxy Space Station Challenge is open for American students ages 13-18 to submit microgravity flight experiment concepts that could be conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory. The contest focuses on Rocket and Groot, characters from theGuardians of the Galaxy comic book franchise, and students are encouraged to develop flight proposals based on the attributes of these Super Heroes. The contest will run through January 31, 2018. After the contest concludes, two student-submitted flight concepts will see their vision turned into reality and become an official ISS National Lab investigation, launching to the space station in 2018.

The contest is divided into two separate research opportunities: TeamRocket, and TeamGroot. Students with an interest in materials sciences, engineering and enabling technology development are encouraged to submit flight concepts through Team Rocket – Who has strong ties to innovation and engineering. Students interested in fundamental biological and regenerative science concepts are encouraged to submit flight proposals under Team Groot – Who is the embodiment of genetics and plant biology.

The student(s) who submit flight concepts through the challenge will be asked to explain their flight experiment proposal, and ultimately how microgravity has the potential to enhance findings that otherwise can be explored on Earth-based laboratory settings. Additionally, students will be asked to consider the size of their proposal experiment. Winning concepts will be housed in a NanoRacks NanoLab (in partnership with space-based education services provider DreamUp) and Space Tango’s TangoLab, which are both project facilities that are currently flying aboard the ISS National Lab and provide investigators the ability to access microgravity for a wide variety of research.

“The ability to partner with a brand as recognizable as Marvel to bring awareness, opportunity and excitement to our nation’s students is a great way to bridge the comic book community with the space community to advance Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education,” said CASIS Director of Operations and Educational Opportunities Kenneth Shields. “Both Rocket and Groot have characteristics that are researched onboard the ISS daily, and to allow students to propose experiments based on their favorite Super Heroes will be an exciting way to engage our Nation’s youth about STEM principles and the space station.”

To learn more about this challenge, including previous experiments conducted on the ISS, and how to submit a proposal, please visit:

Clayton Anderson’s 5th Annual Spaceflight Operations Workshop is taking applications now for this summer’s session at Iowa State University. August 2-14, 2018, experience a truly unique workshop that gives you the knowledge and tools based on exercises similar to those used in actual Astronaut training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Activities include, SCUBA dicing, wilderness survival training, flight simulation, skydiving, and virtual reality. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, January 16.

The Iowa Space Grant Consortium has announced ten recipients from the 2017-18 Undergraduate Merit Scholarship competition. Students from Drake University, Iowa State University, Loras College, and the University of Northern Iowa were selected.

The merit based scholarship awards $5,000 to students pursuing STEM majors. This year’s recipients are majoring in health sciences, chemistry, engineering, physics, and computer science to name a few.

Tomas Gonzalez-Torres speaks to a group of faculty and graduate students at Iowa State University.

Former NASA Space Station Flight Director Tomas Gonzalez-Torres was at Iowa State on Tuesday to speak to faculty about opportunities to collaborate in research with NASA. Gonzalez-Torres, a current lecturer in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State, discussed his experience at NASA and shared some ways in which faculty can get involved.

Dillyn Mumme, an Iowa State student who spent last summer at Johnson Space Center as part of an OSSI internship, spoke about his internship experience. Mumme is also part of a Make To Innovate team at Iowa State that receives funding to create a prototype of an aircraft that can operate in a martian atmosphere.

Gonzalez-Torres and Mumme will make three more stops on their Iowa tour, the next one coming on Thursday, November 9 at Drake University.

The Iowa Space Grant Consortium supports research for faculty at Iowa State. Former NASA Space Station Flight Director, Tomas Gonzalez-Torres will be on campus to speak about how you can collaborate with NASA and ISGC on your research.